The authors Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson experience several similarities and differences in their stories. By approaching a common theme in their writings, the reader can easily depict the authors' styles. Sherwood Anderson's troublesome characters displayed the humor in his writing, and Willa Cather's homely persons identified her seriousness of her style. Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson shared similar thoughts of regionalism. Both writers approach the audience with a question. Would a person's life be better off in the city or in a small town? Many people face a similar question almost everyday. However, does the person realize that his own actions play a major role in the decision-making process? Questions much like these were very important during the American Midwest and frontier times in which cities were developing. The two authors demonstrated their identical messages of how the rapidly growing cities were the new way of life. Keeping the towns and the countryside populated was becoming quite a task. Cather and Anderson had their characters encounter a decision of moving into a crowded city or a quiet country/town dwelling. In Willa Cather's story, Neighbour Rosicky, and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, the character's minds battle with the decisions of leaving an estranged town to repair themselves in a city or continue their productive country lives.
             The two authors had characters experiencing similar emotions in each of their novels. First of all, Willa Cather presented Rosicky's son and daughter-in-law, Polly. The couple contemplated moving to the city to cure their unhappiness. Polly, one of four children, always had a clerical job before she married Rudolph, Rosicky's son (Cather 1842). Because of her gloominess, Polly began to develop an incredible urge to move into the city in hopes that a change of surroundings would make her happy again. Afte...